Baseball/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Tim and Moby are trading baseball cards. TIM: Okay. I'll give you an Albert Pujols and a Dontrelle Willis for your David Wright rookie card. Moby shakes his head no. MOBY: Beep. TIM: OK. I'll throw in this Johnny Damon, but only because I like you. Moby shakes his head no. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Argh! Fine. What cards to you want? Moby holds up a double column list of players. TIM: Man, you must really love David Wright. Moby holds a card on top of his chest. He purrs like a cat, then three hearts float out of his chest. MOBY: Beep. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, How do you play baseball and why is it so popular? From, Elizabeth. Moby and I love baseball. It's our favorite sport. Baseball is a team sport that first because popular during the nineteenth century. An image shows men playing baseball in the nineteenth century. TIM: Although it's thought of as America's national pastime, most historians agree that it evolved from an old British children's game called rounders. An image shows British children playing rounders with a bat, ball, and base. TIM: Today, baseball is played all over the world, from sandlots to stadiums full of thousands of screaming fans. Images show children playing baseball in a field, then a Major League baseball stadium with people cheering. TIM: Here's a quick look at how it works. An image shows an overhead view of a baseball field. TIM: Baseball is played by two teams on a field called a diamond. Each team has nine players, and they take turns playing offense and defense. An animation shows the diamond shaped field and nine players on each team. TIM: Most of the action takes place around the base called home plate. When a team is on offense, it sends a batter up to home plate. An image shows the batter standing at home plate. TIM: The team on defense stands in the field, waiting to catch the balls hit by the batter. An animation shows the defensive team taking their places in the field. TIM: And it has a pitcher to throw the ball over the plate. An image shows the pitcher on the mound, facing home plate. TIM: If the batter swings and misses three times, he's out. An animation shows the pitcher throwing the ball and the batter swings at it and misses. VOICE: Strike three! Yer out! An image shows the scoreboard which lists the number of balls, strikes, outs, homeruns, and the score by inning. TIM: If the batter hits the ball, he has to run from home plate to first base. But a couple of things can happen before he gets there. An animation shows the batter hitting the ball and running to first base. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right, if he hits it in the air, and one of the players on defense catches it before it hits the ground, the batter is out. An animation shows a defensive player catching the ball. VOICE: Yer out! TIM: If he hits it on the ground, one of the defensive players can scoop it up and throw it to first base. If the ball gets there before the batter does, he's out. An animation shows the defensive player catching the ball before the batter gets to first base. VOICE: Yer out! TIM: But if he makes it to first base before the ball does, then he's safe. An animation shows the batter safe at first base. VOICE: Safe! The crowd cheers! TIM: That's called a hit. Now the batter becomes a runner. And it's time for the next player on the team to come up to bat. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right. The offense wants to get a lot of hits, so it can move its runners from first base, to second base, to third base, and finally back home. An animation shows a runner at each base and another batter at home plate. TIM: Every time a runner reaches home plate safely, his team scores a run. An animation shows how many runs the team scores. The total runs for the inning changes on the scoreboard as each runner steps on home plate. TIM: The quickest way to score is by hitting the ball way over the fence, where none of the fielders can reach it. That's called a home run. An animation shows a ball hit over the outfield fence. The crowd cheers. TIM: When a batter hits one, he scores a run, and any runners on base score too. An animation shows the batter and three players on the bases crossing home plate. The bell sound indicates each time a run is scored. TIM: On the other hand, when your team makes three outs, its turn at bat is over, and you have to switch sides. An animation shows three outs on the scoreboard, and the two teams switch places. TIM: The batters all grab their gloves and go play defense, and the team on defense gets ready to start batting. An animation shows one team in the field and a new batter at home plate. TIM: Each one of these turns is called an inning. Whichever team has more runs at the end of nine innings wins the game. An animation shows the scoreboard changing as the innings go from one to nine. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, if they're tied, they play extra innings until someone finally wins. The scoreboard shows the game has gone into extra innings. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yeah, there's no clock. A game could conceivably go on forever. An animation shows a very old player with a long white beard holding a bat and blinking his eyes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, there's a lot more to baseball than this. I didn't talk about things like walks, or the names of all the different defensive positions, or the infield fly rule, or why the Mets are my favorite team. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Oh, fine. Okay, so, so David Wright is off the table. What do you want for that Carlos Beltran? Moby holds up the double column list of players again. TIM: Man. You're worse than Billy Beane! 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